Much of a muchness

I think I prefer making these fresh, bright summery books now that the weather is so autumnal, they cheer me up :-)

I played tennis this morning and it was freezing. I woke up to face the first heavy frost of the autumn so far and I wrapped up in many, many layers of clothing but as the game progressed, the sun came up and the layers came off and we had a terrific game – especially as we won – hurrah! At this time of the year, the sun being so low in the sky can be a bit of a problem but never mind! We are hardy English girls who play in rain, hail or shine and we do have a great time :-)

It’s time to catch up with some tagging that has been going on. Ange from Buzzing with Ange and Go! Smell the Flowers has tagged me in a meme which asks me to tell you about why I am blogging. As I have not really asked myself this question I thought it would be an interesting exercise so here goes….

1 How long have you been blogging?

I have been blogging for 9 months.

2 What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors?

I had been designing a few web sites for friends and one of them asked me to set up a blog for him. I had no idea how to do that so I decided that the best way to learn about blogging was to actually start one, and so here we are!

My mentors are anybody who has ever blogged – I learn what I would like to do with my blog and how to interact with the blogging community by following the example of all the lovely blogging friends I have encountered these last months. My technical ‘guru’ is my lovely friend L, who is a fount of all knowledge on just about everything – a true new-renaissance man.

3 Are you trying to make money online or are you doing it for fun?

It is really just for fun but as my blog has metamorphosed into a blog about handmade books, the interest that people have expressed in my books has encouraged me to consider selling them online and I am exploring this at the moment. I’ll keep you posted…

4 What three things do you love about being online?

1 I love the contacts I have made – the friendliness and support that bloggers offer each other is a wonderful thing. It’s like having pen friends all over the world.

2 I love being able to get help, advice and inspiration almost instantly from a wide range of bloggers working in the same areas of interest as me.

3 I love reading blogs about subjects I know nothing about. The range of people’s interests is so rich, varied and fascinating.

4 What three things do you struggle with online?

1 Time. Keeping up with my favourite blogs is so time consuming. I want to read everything everyone writes but if I did that I would have no time for anything else, least of all making books! I get around them all eventually but I often feel bad that I have missed something crucial or I only remember to visit when someone comments on my blog. I visit networking sites and join as many communities/neighbourhoods as possible and I participate as much as I can and answer every comment on my blog and try to post regularly. I also write very occasionally for Go! Smell the Flowers but often have no time to find things to say over there. It can be exhausting – but it is still always fun!

2 I have a weakness for widgets and get frustrated that WordPress.com doesn’t allow me to have any that use Javascript. I am going to have to move to a self-hosted blog soon I think but I am very sentimental about this little blog as I like the way it looks and it has done me proud for the past 9 months! I’m also a bit scared about the process of changing over, so I keep putting it off.

3 I read some of the more technical, pro-blogging sites talking about SEO, AdSense, PR and the like and I have no idea what they are talking about…

So there you have it. Me in a nutshell.

As is usual with these things, I am going to pass this on to some blogs that I enjoy and would like to get to know better.

Kelly the Culinarian

The Laid.back Buddhist

Lady Banana

Creechman

Asheville Bookgirl

Hope you have fun doing this…